Rivers Cuomo Posts a Collection of Covers to YouTube Without Explanation

Late on a quiet weekday, Rivers Cuomo’s YouTube channel filled with something nobody expected. Sixteen cover songs, most recorded at home between 2018 and 2021, appeared without any announcement. The video titles are simple, the audio is raw, and many tracks cut off after 30 or 90 seconds.

The choices are wild. Cuomo strums through fragments of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” He takes on Nirvana with quiet versions of “Drain You” and “Lithium.” A full run through André 3000’s “Hey Ya” sits next to Harry Nilsson’s “Without You.” His take on Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” gets a bit of percussion. Radiohead’s “Creep,” Post Malone’s “Congratulations,” Green Day’s “When I Come Around,” and even Robert Schumann’s “Träumerei,” hummed over piano, all appear. It reads like a playlist built for nobody but himself.

Cuomo has not acknowledged the uploads. Rolling Stone confirmed he gave no context. Some fans guessed it was an accidental leak, but the fact the songs have remained public for hours makes that feel less likely. The channel just sits there, holding this quiet, half-finished archive.

The timing lands in an unusually busy stretch for Cuomo. The Library of Congress just added Weezer’s 1994 debut to the National Recording Registry. In April, the band put out “Shine Again,” their first new song in four years. A fall tour with the Shins and Silversun Pickups is on the books. Yet these covers don’t point to any of that. They seem wholly separate, almost private.

In their roughness, the recordings read as a musician’s working notes. They show Cuomo reducing pop songs to their bones in real time. The upload, deliberate or not, gives a rare look at how he lives with music away from the stage. No presentation, no rollout. Just the feeling of someone working through what he loves, and leaving the door open.